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Michael J. Fox (Michael
Andrew Fox) (b. June 9, 1961)
is an award-winning,
Canadian-born film and
television actor. His best
known roles include Marty McFly
from the Back to the Future
trilogy (1985-1990); Alex P.
Keaton from Family Ties
(1982-1989), for which he won
three Emmy Awards and a Golden
Globe Award; and Mike Flaherty
from Spin City (1996-2000), for
which he won an Emmy, three
Golden Globes, and two Screen
Actors Guild Awards.
Fox was diagnosed with
Parkinson's disease in 1991,
and disclosed his condition to
the public in 1998. As the
symptoms of his disease
worsened, he retired from
full-time acting in 2000.
Early life
Michael was born in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada. The son of
William and Phyllis Fox, his
family lived in various cities
and towns across Canada because
of his father's career in the
Canadian Forces. The family
finally settled in Vancouver,
British Columbia, in the suburb
of Burnaby when his father,
William Fox, retired in
1971.
Fox co-starred in the Canadian
television series Leo and Me at
age 15 and in 1979 at 18 he
moved to Los Angeles to pursue
an acting career. He was
"found" by producer Ronald
Shedlo and made his American
television debut in the
television movie Letters from
Frank and was credited under
the name "Michael Fox". He
intended to continue to use the
name, but when he registered
with the Screen Actors Guild,
which does not allow duplicate
registration names to avoid
credit ambiguities, he
discovered that Michael Fox, a
veteran character actor, was
already registered under the
name. As he explained in his
autobiography, Lucky Man, and
in interviews, he needed to
come up with a different name.
He did not like the sound of
"Andrew" or "Andy" Fox. He
decided against using his
middle initial because he
didn't want to fit into a
Canadian stereotype, as in
Michael "Eh?" Fox, and because
he did not want teen fan
magazines referring to him as
"Michael, A Fox!". He decided
to adopt a new middle initial
and settled on "J" in reference
to character actor Michael J.
Pollard. Sometimes he jokes
that the J stands for "Jenius"
or "Jenuine".
 Acting
career
Stardom
did not come easily for
Fox. Although he landed a
rapid succession of parts
after Letters from Frank
(in the films Midnight
Madness and Class of 1984
and in guest roles on Lou
Grant and Trapper John
M.D.), he hit a dry spell.
At one point the young
actor was forced to sell
off pieces of his
sectional couch, which
actor Lance Guest
purchased. Fox has called
this period his "macaroni
days", presumably as
opposed to "salad days",
jokingly referring to the
fact that he ate so many
macaroni and cheese
dinners (i.e., cheap meals
since in Canada, "Kraft
Dinner" is ubiquitous as
food for those on a
limited budget).
Family
Ties
Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd)
and Marty McFly (Michael J.
Fox) from the movie Back to the
Future.Fox auditioned for the
role of Alex P. Keaton, the
arrogant, wise-cracking
Republican teenager on the
television series Family Ties.
The first audition did not go
very well, as creator Gary
David Goldberg did not think he
was right for the part. But
casting director Judith Weiner
convinced Goldberg to give Fox
another shot. Goldberg had a
change of heart at the next
audition, but now Fox faced
opposition from NBC executive
Brandon Tartikoff. Goldberg
tried to convince Tartikoff
that Fox would be good for the
role, and Tartikoff finally
relented, famously commenting,
"Go ahead if you insist. But
I'm telling you, this is not
the kind of face you'll ever
see on a lunch box". A few
years later, after Back to the
Future opened to big success,
Tartikoff received a lunch box
in the mail that had Fox's
picture on it. There was a note
inside that read, "To Brandon:
This is for you to put your
crow in. Love and Kisses,
Michael J. Fox." Tartikoff kept
the lunch box in his office for
the rest of his career.
Family Ties struggled out of
the gate, barely getting
renewed in its first season.
But in 1984, it was paired up
with The Cosby Show on Thursday
nights, and the two shows
ranked in the top two for the
Nielsen ratings until 1987,
when Family Ties was moved to
Sunday nights. Fox won three
Emmy Awards and one Golden
Globe for his portrayal of Alex
P. Keaton. A famous episode in
1987, called "My Name is Alex"
was directed like a theatrical
play, with Alex seeing a
psychiatrist to cope with the
death of his best friend. This
episode was picked as the 68th
best in television history in a
1997 issue of TV Guide. In a
1999 issue, Alex P. Keaton was
ranked #27 on their list of the
50 Greatest TV Characters Ever.
Fox also met his future wife
Tracy Pollan, when she
portrayed Alex's girlfriend
Ellen Reed in the 1985–1986
season. The couple met again on
the set of his 1988 movie,
Bright Lights, Big City.
Spin
City
Spin City
was a sitcom that ran from
1996 to 2002 on ABC, based
on a fictional local
government running New
York City, originally
starring Fox as Mike
Flaherty, the Deputy Mayor
of New York. After leaving
the show, he was replaced
by Charlie Sheen who
portrayed the character
Charlie Crawford.
Altogether 145 episodes
were made (see list of
episodes).
Other
Notable
Roles
Some
other notable productions
Fox has been a part of
include the Back to the
Future movies, Mars
Attacks!, Teen Wolf, For
Love or Money, The Secret
of My Success, The
Frighteners and The
American President (film).
He is also the voice of
Stuart Little in the
movies based on the
popular book by E. B.
White, Chance in the
Homeward Bound series, and
Milo Thatch in Atlantis:
The Lost Empire.
In 2004, Fox guest starred in
the comedy Scrubs as Dr. Kevin
Casey, who suffered from
obsessive-compulsive disorder.
In 2006, he appeared in four
episodes of Boston Legal as a
lung cancer patient who used
his influence in an
experimental drug test to
ensure he received the real
drug instead of a placebo. The
producers brought him back in a
recurring role for season 3,
beginning with the season
premiere. Though his character
did not survive the season, Fox
was nominated for an Emmy Award
for best guest appearance.
Private
life, illness and
advocacy
Fox married actress Tracy
Pollan on 16 July 1988 at West
Mountain Inn in Arlington, VT.
The couple have four children:
Samuel Michael (born May 30,
1989), twins Aquinnah Kathleen
and Schuyler Frances (born
February 15, 1995), and Esmé
Annabelle (born November 3,
2001). Fox holds dual
Canadian-U.S. citizenship.
The MJFF
logo.
The Team Fox logo.Although
symptoms of the disease started
to show in 1990 while shooting
the movie Doc Hollywood , in
1991 he was diagnosed with
young-onset Parkinson's
disease, but didn't go public
until 1998. Since then he has
been a strong advocate of
Parkinson's disease research,
especially embryonic stem cell
research, which many in the
scientific community believe
may one day help sufferers of
Parkinson's and other
debilitating illnesses. His
foundation, The Michael J. Fox
Foundation, was created to help
advance this research.
In 1998 the Alberta native was
honoured with a star on
Canada's Walk of Fame.
In 2000, he announced that he
would be retiring from the lead
role of Spin City due to his
illness. (A new lead character
was created for Fox's
replacement, Charlie
Sheen.)
Michael is an outspoken Detroit
Tigers fan, attending all 2006
World Series games.
2006
political advertisement
controversy
In late October 2006, Fox
appeared in a television
campaign commercial, endorsing
Claire McCaskill, the
Democratic candidate for U.S.
Senate in Missouri and opposing
incumbent senator Jim Talent
for his specific opposition to
federal funding of embryonic
stem cell research. Fox also
made similar ads in Wisconsin
(supporting Governor Jim Doyle)
and in Maryland, endorsing
senatorial candidate
Congressman Ben Cardin. All
three of the endorsed
politicians won their
respective elections.
Conservative radio talk show
host Rush Limbaugh caused
controversy by claiming Fox was
"either off his medication or
acting" in the ad for
McCaskill, calling Fox "really
shameless". According to the
Washington Post, Limbaugh also
told his listeners that Fox was
"exaggerating the effects of
the disease... He's moving all
around and shaking, and it's
purely an act." Limbaugh later
said he would apologize to Fox
"if I am wrong in
characterizing his behavior on
this commercial as an act. . ."
Elaine Richman, a
neuroscientist in Baltimore who
co-wrote Parkinson's Disease
and the Family offered the
opinion that "Anyone who knows
the disease well would regard
his movement as classic severe
Parkinson's disease. Any other
interpretation is
misinformed."
Fox responded to Limbaugh's
comments, ". . .it's difficult
for people who don't have
Parkinson's, or don't know
about Parkinson's, to
understand the symptoms and the
way they work and the way
medication works. You get what
you get on any given day."
Fox on
living with Parkinson's
disease
Parkinson's disease is a
chronic neurological disorder
which can be characterized by a
triad of symptoms: rigidity
(specifically "leadpipe" and
"cogwheeling" rigidity),
resting tremor, and
bradykinesia (slow movement).
At present, there is no cure,
but medications provide some
relief from the symptoms. Fox
manages his symptoms using
Sinemet, a commercial form of
Levodopa (L-dopa). L-dopa
treatment decreases in
effectiveness as it is used
over a long period of time, so
Fox, like many PD sufferers,
extends the life of its
effectiveness by using it as
little as possible.
The cover of Michael J. Fox's
first book, Lucky Man.In his
memoir, Lucky Man, Fox wrote
that he did not take his
medication prior to his
testimony before the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee in
1998. "I had made a deliberate
choice to appear before the
subcommittee without
medication. It seemed to me
that this occasion demanded
that my testimony about the
effects of the disease, and the
urgency we as a community were
feeling, be seen as well as
heard. For people who had never
observed me in this kind of
shape, the transformation must
have been startling."
Source : Some
of the information on this page
came from a Wikipedia
article and is
licensed under the GNU
Documentation License.
©2008
www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Michael J.
Fox - Generator
- Biography